Applied Economics Lunch Seminar

Du 28/09/2021 de 12:30 à 13:30

Salle R1.09, Campus Jourdan

SOUIDI Youssef (PSE)

Optional course enrollment as a mechanism for within-school segregation : Evidence from a French reform

In this paper, I study how optional course taking shapes within-school segregation in French middle-schools, an education system with no tracking policy. Enrollment in these courses is correlated with students’ social background : using this information in the class assignment process is therefore a likely driver of imbalances in the social composition of classes. I estimate the impact of a 2016 reform affecting the supply of some of these courses in Grades 6 and 8 on within-school segregation. I apply a difference-in-differences strategy to administrative data covering the universe of students enrolled in French middle-schools, exploiting the fact that only part of the middle-schools provided these optional courses before their removal. I find that the reform significantly decreased within-school social segregation among treated middle schools - those which used to offer optional courses. While they had a higher segregation level than non-treated schools before the reform, the gap is completely closed in Grade 6 the year of the reform. In Grade 8, the gap narrows down but does not close, indicating that the optional courses under study explain only part of the excess level of within-school social segregation for that grade. Importantly, the reform was particularly effective at reducing the level of segregation in the most segregated middle-schools.